Conference decwet::windows-nt

    Sometimes I just don't understand what it takes to make "digits"
    happy.
    
    Let's see we have a well-written marketing piece that could influence
    some large customers to seriously consider Digital to be a player in
    their major investment in Windows NT.  I mean they are gonna buy the
    stuff from somebody, aren't they?  sounds like a revenue to me.
    
    But then another part of Digital is upset by the the "LIES" in the
    article and the possible minimizing of the VMS operating system.
    
    Well it's not lies it's marketing!.  Kinda like when Sun, HP, Compaq, et
    al took large parts of the market by telling the customer what they
    wanted to hear while Digital told them what Digital wanted to say and
    at the same time engaging in silly
    re-orgs, decimation of expertise, and inter-business unit warfare.  I
    mean we all know the only important things are internal don't we :^)
    
    
    VMS is a great operating system and if handled right can be extremely
    profitable to Digital and extremely useful to customers for many years. 
    (The system manager at my previous company calls it the *ONLY* mission
    critical OS left).  But good marketing does not mean arguing VMS
    strengths in Windows NT magazine.  I mean come on, point the arguement
    to the audience.  And don't confuse the audience with multiple
    arguements.
    
    There I feel better now. 

>>  et tu

Excuse us, oh mighty One, that we
believe telling the whole truth
is the right thing to do.

    Marketing or not, don't say the Digital version of NT has the first
    of something if VMS had it first. Say it has the first of something for
    NT. You still make your point but don't feed the competitors who will
    take your statement as proof FROM DIGITAL that VMS lacks some
    capability ("but our unix has it" or "but our NT now has it" or...)
    
    
    You get the picture. And don't imagine that statements like this 
    won't get used by competitors to "prove" that VMS doesn't have
    this or that...
    
    It's bad enough to have competitors sending out mis-information; they
    don't need more ammo. The best way to do this is to be very
    scrupulous about telling the truth about at least the company's
    own products! When you say "first in the world" about anything,
    be sure at least that it's not going to dump on a DEC product.
    
    Call failure to do this lies or untruths or being reality-challenged
    or whatever. Result is much the same.
    
    

RE: .15

	The mis-information can begin stopping when Digital people stop
	thinking that there is a "Digital version of NT". It's
	Microsoft's code, not ours. We help them, but it's THEIR
	product.

	
							mike
				Incredibly frustrated that this is still
				an issue